The online site Pseudo.com (host to our friends at Streetsound) recently hosted a remix contest for budding and established producers to give a whirl to a new track from Hall & Oates entitled "Hold On To Yourself." Eight winning mixes were selected out of a pool that's rumored to have numbered over a thousand, and each run the gamut from commercial nightclub house (courtesy of Tommy Musto) at best and Casio hip-hop at worst.

But sometimes the ones that don't win are worth the real attention. Take one "loser" of the Hall & Oates remix contest, experimental/ambient guru Terre Thaemlitz, who has recorded extensively for Instinct, Caipirinha, Mille Plateaux and his own Comatonse label, among others. Thaemlitz is satisfied just in that he got Darryl Hall to listen to his reconstruction. It also fit in rather nicely as yet another creative statement for the outspoken Thaemlitz.

"Well, the reason I entered the contest is quite simple," Thaemlitz types from his new home in Oakland, California. "With all of the urban legends about Hall & Oates' sexuality, what could be cooler and campier on my discography? And the incredibly J.O. track title, 'Hold On To Yourself,' just added fuel to the fire." Undeterred from his loss at the contest, he has other plans. "I have used my post-processing elements with no semblance of the original source materials in a track titled, 'This Closet Is Made Of Doors,' which will most likely be part of my next solo CD (currently an untitled work-in-progress)."